Obama, Iraqi prime minister lay out postwar vision

DIPLOMACY

John H. Cushman Jr. and Mark Landler, New York Times

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Washington --

President Obama, meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at the White House on Monday, said the emergence of Iraq as a "sovereign, self-reliant and democratic" nation nine years after the U.S.-led invasion had created a beacon of democracy in the Arab world.

When the Arab League meets in Baghdad next year for the first time in decades, he said, "people throughout the region will see a new Iraq that's determining its own destiny."

The two leaders appeared at a news conference after a morning of meetings as the two governments marked a landmark shift in their relationship with the withdrawal of U.S. troops. In a signal of the enduring security relationship, the United States said it would supply additional F-16 fighter jets to Iraq, helping rebuild an air force that was destroyed by the war.

"After nearly nine years, our war in Iraq ends this month," Obama said.

Having opposed that war at the outset and campaigned on a platform of ending it, Obama in effect was highlighting an outcome that some who favored the war predicted at its onset: that it would create a model of democracy in a region where it had rarely thrived. He said Iraq "can be a model for others who are aspiring to build democracy," and that this justified the U.S. expenditure "of blood and treasure" there.

History will judge whether the war was a mistake to begin with, he said, but all the sacrifice had created "enormous potential."

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Al-Maliki, speaking through an interpreter, said that cooperation was still needed, especially in matters of security: combatting terrorism, training security forces, and equipping the Iraqi army "to protect our sovereignty."

In a few weeks, the U.S. military force that still numbered 170,000 in 2007 will have shriveled to a vestigial presence, and both men emphasized that the partnership between Washington and the government it nurtured in Baghdad will proceed to take a more normal relationship.

In their meetings, officials said, the two leaders faced a broad agenda intended to reinforce the new partnership. In addition to regional security issues, al-Maliki and Obama had to deal with trade, energy, U.S. investment in Iraq and education.